Tiwi Islands Still Affected by 30-year-old Child Abuse Case As Royal Commission Reaches out

By Laetitia Lemke
ABC News
July 12, 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-12/tiwi-islands-royal-commission-institutional-child-sexual-abuse/4817658

Barriers of culture, language and distance are challenging the Royal Commission on Institutional Child Sexual Abuse as it reaches out to remote communities, including the Tiwi Islands.

Residents of the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin, still have not decided if they want to talk to the commission about a 30-year-old case.

Dozens of children on the islands had claimed they were sexually abused by the principal of the local boys' school, Brother John Hallett, over several years from the mid-1980s.

Brother Hallett was found guilty on two counts of committing an act of gross indecency, but both convictions were quashed on appeal.

Tiwi Islands Shire Council deputy mayor Marius Puruntatameri says the incident had a profound psychological impact on the community.

Russell Goldflam, now the president of the Criminal Lawyers Association of the Northern Territory, followed the case at the time.

AUDIO: Listen to Laetitia Lemke's report (PM)

He says the convictions were quashed for essentially a very simple reason.

"A prosecution had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Brother John Hallett had committed any offences," he said.

The court cited a possibility of concoction or contamination of witnesses from the tight-knit community and pointed to the failure of investigating police to get statements from eight witnesses who allegedly saw abuse.

"The court described this as astonishing, which is pretty severe criticism coming from Supreme Court judges," Mr Goldflam said.

"If it's said that these acts occurred in the presence of eight witnesses and not one of those people comes along to court and says, 'Yep, I saw it,' then you can see why the court would have real concerns about being able to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the allegations were made out."

Former council president says confusion reigned

After the case, different groups claimed the case had failed because of cultural and language difficulties and the lack of court protocols to protect vulnerable witnesses.

Barry Puruntatameri, the president of the local council at the time, says confusion reigned.

He says Tiwi Islanders did not understand European laws and it was difficult to navigate what happened.

He wants the royal commission to investigate the allegations of abuse.

But the majority of people the ABC spoke to on the Tiwi Islands said they were reluctant to go back over the allegations through the royal commission.

They declined to be interviewed, but said they invested a lot to get their children's stories heard in what they considered a foreign legal system and they feel that system let them down.

Commission reaching out to Indigenous Australia

The royal commission is already hearing stories of child sexual abuse from Indigenous Australians across a range of institutions.

The commission's chief executive Janette Dines admits getting information to communities is tough, with some people unaware the inquiry exists.

"That's why we need all the help that we can both from Indigenous peak organisations and we are working closely with, for example, Congress at the national level to really make sure that we start to get the message across," she said.

Sharron Williams, the chairperson of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, says healing must be key to the process.

"It's vital that this whole process is based on a process of healing... healing an individual means healing a family," she said.

The commission will spend this year touring major centres with plans to go to remote communities next year.

It is not yet known if the Tiwi Islands will be one of them and the Tiwi community is still divided on whether the inquiry would be welcome.